So YEA!! I finally figured out how to reset my stinkin' password for the site, since I couldn't remember my old one.

A lot has been happening...I found a permanent position with a great company. Learning a whole new career and discovering that I could see myself in a this position for a long time coming. Most days are pretty much the same, but the very nature of LP means you have to be ready for anything at any moment. From weather knocking out power to a store, to an earthquake, to a shoplifting ring.

Been exploring the state, made it as far as Avila Beach a couple weekends ago. This summer, I'm hoping to make it to the north part of the state and try kayaking on one of the northern rivers and some wine tasting in Napa. It's been interesting and I've filled up many a memory card on the digi camera. One day I will figure out on how to post the pictures on this blog!

Boring....

There hasn't been much happening, slowly getting more babysitting clients, while the money doesn't pay the bills, it helps out a little. Didn't get a chance to go up in search of Ostrich Land in Buellton this past weekend, was not feeling well. However, I did get to watch my friend's kids play soccer. It's amazing how much they grew up...sometimes that wonderful....but sometimes not so much. It means I'm also getting older and I don't like that so much some days.

Well, hopefully will have something better do blog about later this week....got a call for an interview for a position at Disney, so hopefully I'll hear something about that and will be employed again. I miss working, although if I had the money to support not working, I'm sure I would find staying home a lot more interesting.

Taking a new road.....

Well....I guess it's been a while since my last blog. To catch everyone up....I ended up moving in with my parents, getting a new puppy (Riley), buying the Nissan Sentra, graduating with my degree (FINALLY!) and then moving back out to California. That is the nutshell version of what I've done since my last post in April 2008. I truly hope that I will be blogging more frequently in the future. Not that I have many, if any readers.....but in case the four people who may read this were interested.

Anyway...I woke up this morning to realize that while I am currently inhibited from doing a lot of activities by a small cash flow problem (I'm still job hunting), I do have a decent car and I live in a state that has some of the prettiest landscapes and diverse drives, all within a couple hours of my place. So I decided to resurrect "The Sunday Drive". Growing up in Alaska, I remember that my parents used to take my sister & I on these drives. We would go up into the mountains, or down along the coast to the Kenai Peninsula. We would listen to Billy Joel tapes and occasionally make stops at country stores for treats. I recall scoring a plastic figure of a Kodiak Bear on one of these trips. I ask my sister if she remembers these trips, but both she and my parents tell me it was really only the one time we did that......it seemed like more then one to me.

After we moved to Ohio, we would take fall drives through the Metroparks system and along the Lake Erie shoreline up to the islands. I would make many of these trips with my grandparents, sandwiched between them on the bench seat of their old truck, while my Grandmother's little rat terrier, Rugs would dance across our laps running from window to the next. My Grandfather always took the back roads from their house in Olmsted Falls to the boat dock on Catawba Island that would take us to our cottage on South Bass Island. These roads wound through farmland and vineyards and little towns with names like Vermillion, Columbia Station, Wellington and Amherst. I ended up moving to Amherst and managing the old once screen theatre there in the late 90's. When we moved to Minnesota in 1990, we would take drives along the southern part of the state, following the Mississippi River along the river bluffs where the leaves would be so vivid with their fall colors. We would cross the river at Lake City, MN and drive along the Wisconsin side of the river, visiting orchards and historical markers, this was "The Big Woods" of Laura Ingalls Wilder fame. During high school, a crush on a boy led me join "Explorer's Club" which would take me on even more drives, hikes and canoe trips through the Upper Midwest. Once I obtained my driver's license, I enjoyed driving around taking new roads to wherever they might lead me to. During my brief stay at Kent State University, I would take always take the back roads home on the weekends.

However, once I moved out on my own, I never seemed to have the time to take these drives anymore. Sure, I've been on the occasional trip that would take me to places (my almost yearly camping trip with friends to El Capitan State Beach) it had been a while since I just got in the car and randomly drove someplace. Having three jobs and school will find anyone with a shortage of time.

So today I bundled my dog into the car, topped off my gas tank and set out ending north & west on the 101 Freeway. I ended up choosing to visit the Ojai Valley, about 75 miles northwest from my house. It was a beautiful day, not surprisingly it is California after all, but it was sunny and 75 most of the day. I drove to downtown Ojai and parked my car. As I ran into the store to get the dog some water, I came back to the one damper on the day....while in the store, my dog surrendered most of his breakfast all over my leather seats....so headed back into the store (thanks ladies of the Rainbow Bridge Natural Foods for the cleaning advice) to buy some baby wipes and paper towels. Went for a long walk around the town, snapping pictures in my best tourist fashion. Back in the car and drove out through the Valley to Lake Casitas. Stopped and got some fresh fruit and vegetables from a farmstand and instead of taking the 101 (lots of traffic) I chose instead to take the two lane road through Conejo and Santa Clarita Valleys. Lots of citrus groves and more farmstands selling everything from fresh fruits salsas, honey, avocados and almonds. The mountain ranges changed from the green ranges of the Topa-Topa Range to the brown, chaparral covered ranges of the Santa Susana. One of my favorite movies, "King of California" was filmed in this area. The citrus groves gave way to oil rigs and desert cactus as I wound my way closer to the town of Valencia, where I turned south and headed home. It was a great day....even with a carsick puppy.

Tune in next Sunday, going to search for the ostrich farm on the Central Coast

Car Shopping

So I went car shopping yesterday. Looked at three different kinds of car, all of which were the same car essentially. It wasn't has bad as I feared. It seems most car dealers have toned down the rhetoric and aren't as full court press on people who just want to look. I took my Dad with me, and most of the salesguys were courteous. Only the Nissan dealer tried to pressure me into purchasing today, but only after my Dad had gone to the restroom for a minute. But I held strong :) which is always a fear of mine, cracking under pressure. The Toyota saleman was 100% uninterested in selling me a car, so much so that even if I had liked the new Corollas (which I ended up NOT likely, surprisingly since I drive one now) I wouldn't have gone back to that particular dealership. My Dad was really pressing me to get a Honda, which I agreed to test drive, despite feeling they were out of my price range. I was pleasntly surprised and enjoyed driving the new Civic, but the Civic Hybrid doesn't handle as well. He (my Dad) didn't even understand why I wanted a Nissan Sentra so badly, but when I convinced him that I would consider the Hondas if we could test drive the Nissans, he agreed to give them a shot. I knew he would come around once we test drove and I was right! Although he explained, he really didn't know much about Nissan, only that they were orginally Datsuns, a car he has had horrible expierences with. But the new Nissan Sentras were a much smoother ride and quieter engine then even the Civic. So I'm pretty sure that I have found my new car!

PS~ My Dad's favorite salesman was the Honda sales guy who when seeing my current car (a 1996 Geo Prizm) which has close to 200K miles on it and looks like it's been in a fight and barely survived....remarked "You aren't trading that in......are you?"

Puppy Fever

I have a bad case of puppy fever! I want a new dog so badly, and now with school coming to a close, I thought that I might get myself one as a graduation present. I had an opportunity to get a puppy (cavalier king charles) last November. These puppies are normally priced very high because they are a really great all around dog, (and before I get a whole bunch of comments on the tragedies of paying for a dog, when I could rescue one, I know I could do this, but I prefer to get one of these dogs, so please spare me the comments...I am aware of puppy mills, the unwanted pet population, etc. I am a responsible pet owner and get my dogs fixed as soon as they are old enough)

anyway....I am not able to keep dogs in my apartment. So I tried to work out an arrangement for my parents (who live down the road) but my mother didn't want the responsibility, especially since I don't live there. My dad then tells me later that it would have been fine with him and I should have jumped at the opportunity....

So fast forward 6 months......I am going to be moving in with my parents for the next 15 monthes to save up money so that I can pay off bills and move back to California. I have a line on getting a puppy, exactly the one I want, and my mother says it's fine with her....Now my Dad is the one who doesn't think he wants another dog in his housse (they have one) because he doesn't want his dog to start marking his territory in the house.....I mean I understand their point of view and I will respect it since I'm getting a year of free rent, but it still makes me sad....

I was given a puppy back when I was 13 (1990) as a Valentine's Day gift, a brittany spaniel. I had him from the time he was 8 weeks old until he passed away at the old age of 13. He had moved to 3 different states with me, and I had even gotten an apartment that accepted pets when I went away to school because I didn't want to leave him at home.....It was so hard on me when he died because he was my constant companion and it's taken me about 6 years to really feel like I could have another pet......So now I guess I will wait another year and a half.....BUt by then I'm sure something else will come up......

Minor rant about Oblique Advertising!

Okay....Today was a day I had been looking forward to for a while, ever since I saw a billboard up on Memorial advertising this event. There was a wellness expo at the State Fairgrounds today and it's theme this year was "Living Green and Efficient"! I love things like this, learning about recycling, bio-friendly cleaning products, how to de-mold your house, etc. Since this is specifically what was advertised, I thought for sure it would be an interesting time and since I am working on both a web-page and research paper on these types of things, it was a perfect research opportunity.......but I have just one thing to say about it.......

WHAT A LOAD OF HORSE MANURE!!!!!!!

In the whole expo hall, there was one small booth with cleaning products and a small, un-manned table from the OKC-DEQ with some free stickers that said "USE LESS STUFF". Everything else was home repair products, with NO emphasis on what made the eco-logically friendly, or "green". A bunch of chiropracters (I think like 5 different totals), someone who made wooden fish carvings, displays that sold the latest in "ion revitalization" which is supposed to soak all the metobolic wastes out of your body through your feet (like, whatever) and my personal favorite was the women who stopped my mother and I by walking right in front of us and holding up her hands and asking us how did we eat our produce and trying to sell us pills that contain all the vitamens and minerals that our body requires from fruits and vegatables, so we would have to eat the real ones....it would have seemed plausible, except for all of her assistants that walked around pretending they were on the phone, only the "phone" was a banana. Then another woman saw me talking on my cell phone and rushed up to me with a flyer on how cell phones cause brain cancer, and I should buy this magnet that she was selling to reduce those harmful cell phone waves attacking my brain....

It was like the Twilight Zone and if this is what passes for a "green living" expo then we are in trouble. No wonder, most people think that environmentalists are crazy, because if this expo was their first encounter with "environmentalists" I have to say they would be correct in their assumptions.

Saving the environment, and working towards a more bio-friendly household are noble causes and should not be presented as the latest "snake-oil" fixes. Nice advertising job! Because it wasn't even close to what it was presented to be!

The Food Circus is rolling into town!

In ring #1 the ringleader is telling me the history....First it was okay to drink soda, then sugar was bad for you, so along came diet soda, but wait...artifical sweetners caused cancer, so then it was back to the regular sodas, then it was no, no wait....just kidding here is a new improved diet soda, no calories....but it'll make you fat?! Ring #2 is showcasing how fat free foods have too much sugar and sugar free foods have too much fat and in Ring #3 we have the Advertising clowns chucking free candy, both sugar and fat free varieties into the crowd and the vendors are calling up and down the stands, Free diet pills! Weight Loss Surgery! Electroshock Ab Belts! and on and on and on until you are ready to rip your own arm off (with it's attractive heart monitor/pedometer) and use it to karate chop your way to the exit! So, as you leave the circus, you stop at the farmstand where you buy all the ingrediants to switch to an all natural, 100% whole grain food diet, all organics, no preservatives, etc....then your doc tells you, you've been feeling sick because you can't eat wheat or any other gluten containing products because your body can't digest it, but don't worry there are plenty of new gluten-free products that are available at the market, located back inside the main tent, just be sure to read the labels carefully, because most of these products are highly processed.......it never ends and it never fails....can't I just take vitamins and minerals tablets? Because this whole food circus is really no fun at all!